Recently we resolved that we would become much better people and start bringing a packed lunch to Uni. Where better to start than rice balls, the food so many students already consume with unrestrained financial passion? Since they are now a devastating $4.70 at St. Dave’s, it seemed there was nothing else to be done.
Because of how eager rice is to food poison you, you should only prepare this dish the night before you eat it. This doesn’t lend well to bulk meal prep, not to mention that cooking rice makes me want to cry for suspiciously long periods of time. That being said, this recipe is delicious, and worth the effort.
If you want easy meal prep, probably stick with sandwiches. If you want big boy flavour, read on.
Serves: 4 rice balls.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups Sushi Rice/Short grain rice
- 1 boneless skinless chicken breast
- Teriyaki sauce
- Sushi seasoning (bought in a packet, or made from rice wine vinegar and sugar)
- 1 Avocado
Price per ball: Technically $1.20 worth of ingredients.
Rice:
You need specifically short grain rice – you can’t cut corners with that one. Make sure to rinse your rice before you cook it, you heathens. Every 1 cup of rice needs 1 and a half cups of water to every cup of rice. 2(rice) + 3(water) = 4(ball). You’re welcome. Bring to the boil then turn down the heat, lid and let simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from pot and let cool for a further 15 minutes in a large, shallow dish.
Sprinkle 3 tablespoons of sushi seasoning over rice and mix with a WOODEN (seriously, don’t use metal, it’ll fuck the taste up) spoon. You can make your own sushi seasoning by boiling a splash of rice vinegar with some sugar. Eyeball it.
Teriyaki Chicken:
Cut your chicken up into small chunks and drown it in teriyaki sauce while you’re dealing with the rice. If you’re feeling like a domestic goddess, homemade teriyaki sauce is literally just soy sauce, honey, garlic and ginger, but we couldn’t afford honey, so we just bought the sauce pouch. We recommend going to the international aisle of your supermarket for a proper jar of sauce, which is usually the same price as the flimsy rip-off packets in the dinner aisle. If you wanna be a God-tier bitch, go to your local Asian supermarket. Whatever you do, marinade the chicken in it for 15 minutes and then pour it all into a pan to cook until golden-brown. Don’t be afraid to baste that bitch - spoon some oily-teriyaki goodness over that cooking chicken.
Assembly:
Chop up some avocado. 1/8th per rice ball is good but depends on the size of the avo. Also, it’s your life and avo season won’t be here forever. Get a large square of clingfilm (sorry) and spoon a cup of rice on top, flatten out into a circular disk. In the middle, place the avocado and a couple of pieces of chicken. If you want anything else like red pepper, carrots, so on, now is your time to shine. We opted for mayonnaise. Be generous with the fillings because that’s almost the only benefit of making your own sushi.
Now is the ball formation stage. Lift up the clingfilm from the edges and let the rice meet in the middle. Cradle from the bottom and shape into a ball such that that the fillings are all enclosed. Twist the cling film around to secure. There you have it folks. A tender, little rice ball: the perfect lunch to go alongside doing absolutely fuck all work in the Central Library.